Wednesday, January 19, 2011

As you may have heard, the city of Charlotte is getting its close-up this month thanks to 20th Century Fox -- which has a film crew in the area shooting a pilot for the Showtime cable network.

Reporter Caroline McMillan provided details about the production of "Homeland" in a recent Observer story; on Tuesday, one of the series' executive producers gave us a few more pieces of info.

Howard Gordon, who was executive producer and showrunner for "24" during its eight-season run, said North Carolina was an easy sell for his team.

"It matched the location we wanted, the tax credits were great, and Claire Danes and Mandy Patinkin, who are two of our lead actors, are based in New York (so) it was a commutable distance for them," he said. "We scouted Wilmington as well, but the architecture and everything worked better here."

Charlotte is standing in for the Virginia-D.C. area, Gordon says.

In addition to south Charlotte's Mountainbrook neighborhood -- where two homes are being used as the primary domestic settings -- filming is taking place at locations including the Ritz-Carlton in uptown, the Carolinas Aviation Museum adjacent to Charlotte-Douglas International Airport, and the shuttered Philip Morris USA plant in Concord (which is doubling as the CIA headquarters, Gordon says).

Shooting originally was to start on Jan. 10, but the recent snowstorm hit the area that morning, and production was shut down for two days. Otherwise, Gordon says, "It’s been a wonderful experience. ... It's great and it's a terrific crew and it's interesting in a non-Hollywood town to see a film crew."

Gordon says filming of the pilot is scheduled to wrap here on Feb. 2. Production then moves to Washington, D.C., for a day, then everyone flies to Israel for two days of shooting (Israel will stand in for Baghdad).

As McMillan reported, once they've finished filming and editing the pilot, Fox will show it to the executives at Showtime. The network would probably make their decision in mid-March.

If they order a series, pre-production would start in April and the crew would likely film June to October. The first episodes would begin airing on Showtime around the end of August, while they're still in production.

Gordon says the plan is to continue shooting in Charlotte if the show gets picked up. "I'm protecting myself by lowering expectations. But we're optimistic."

The show stars British actor Damian Lewis as a U.S. Marine sergeant who comes home a war hero after having been held as a prisoner of war in Baghdad for eight years, during which time he was presumed dead. Danes, who won a Golden Globe on Sunday night for the HBO movie "Temple Grandin," plays a CIA agent who suspects that he's plotting an attack on America.

Interested in working as an extra in the Showtime pilot? Submit your photo and information to homelandcasting@gmail.com. You also can keep up with casting news and needs on the Homeland Casting Facebook page. As of Wednesday night, the production was "still in need of Professional/CIA/Government types and folks with newer American made cars."